Germany's foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, has welcomed the
new U.S. nuclear strategy and said Iran "should once again be ready to talk and transparently renounce any option of nuclear armament."
The United States' new nuclear-defense policy, announced on April 6, broke with the Bush administration in a pledge not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear countries as long as they are signatories of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. This does not include Iran and North Korea.
Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad today warned Obama of a "tooth-breaking" response to the new nuclear policy, which Iranian Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki has described as "propaganda."
Westerwelle said the new U.S. policy, combined with the scheduled signing in Prague of a new U.S.-Russian arms reduction agreement on April 8, should show Iran that the international community is "serious about disarmament."
Also today, German prosecutors say two men, one Iranian and one Iranian-German national, have been charged with illegally selling Iran equipment intended for the country's missile program.
compiled from agency reports